I'll break my recipe up into three portions:
1. What I did with the pork belly;
2. The composition of the broth itself;
3. The plating.
PORK BELLY
Ingredients:
Approx. 1 lb fatty pork belly
Maple syrup
Tamari
Garlic powder
Essentially I took a 2T. of the maple syrup and the tamari and about 1 tsp of garlic powder and brined the belly in this for two days before smoking.
On day three, I dried off the pork belly, pressed some sesame seeds onto it, and smoked it in my Cameron's smoke box for about 20 minutes, and let it cool down in the closed box, which I believe only intensified the smokiness. This was then stuck in the fridge until I set up the ramen broth the following day. What did I use to smoke the belly? That secret I am keeping to myself.
On the same day I put the belly in the brine, I also stuck the pork bones for the broth in a zip lock bag, marinating with some Sky Valley Miso Marinade overnight. These bones were then slow roasted in a 275 oven for about 2 hours, on a bed of cut up scallions. When I took the roasting pan out of the oven and while everything was still piping hot, I poured an entire can of Sapporo beer on it, and then let it set out for almost two hours to cool down enough where I could put it in the fridge.
BROTH:
The following morning, the following components went into the slow cooker to cook for nearly 6 hours while I was at work:
2# roasted pork bones (with the beer, pan juices, and scallions)
3 long stems of garlic scapes, rough diced
6 scallions, rough dice
1 T. Tamari
1 T. Rice wine vinegar
1 tsp. Dashi powder
6 Big, dried shitakes
1 T sushi ginger, shred
1 star anise
Dashes white pepper
1 T Sky Valley Miso Marinade
1/4 lb slab pork belly
(Then added enough water to fill the slow cooker to capacity.)
I gave one stir to distribute everything, and set my slow cooker for six hours.
When I came home, I did not have the time (nor the cheesecloth) to properly strain everything out for a "consomme" type experience. I did a rough skim and got all the solids out of the water, however, my broth was not crystal clear.
I gave it a taste. It needed more oomph. So at this juncture, I added a few splashes more of tamari, rice wine vinegar, and miso.
RAMEN NOODLE
I used fresh, store bought ramen noodle by Sun Noodle Co. I followed instructions. And after draining, I drizzled a wee bit of sesame oil on the noodles to keep them from sticking while I got everything else ready for plating.
PLATING FINAL PRODUCT:
I put a nice mound of noodle in the middle of each bowl, and on top of that, was arranged nicely:
1 hard boiled egg, cut in half
More sliced mushrooms
Pork belly, sliced
Some pork from the roasted bones
Minced scallions
Seaweed
And over the top of everything, I gave a good dash of Simply Asia ginger-sesame spice blend.
On my own bowl, I had some pork & leek shumai already steamed up and ready to go.
The husband gave me 3 stars out of 5; however, I suspect it's closer to 4 stars, for me personally. And I dare say it rendered out a passable, authentic product.
(Thanks, Justin, for the enthusiastic reply!)
This a.m., before heading off to work, I loaded up the slow cooker with everything I am using for my first attempt at soup stock for my ramen.
Here, you can see I'm pre-soaking some shitakes (both, the shrooms and soak water go into the cauldron, by the way), some rough chopped garlic scapes, one star anise, a bunch of scallions, a big fat glob of the sushi ginger (It is the only ginger I use now, for pretty much everything--including Indian and Thai cooking, it's a great multi-tasker and time saver), Hondashi, and though I haven't seen it mentioned in others' recipes, I love white pepper.
Into my six quart slow cooker, I layered the pork bones and aromatics, for even distribution.
I then took a slab of my smoked pork belly from last night, and put it ontop. The ratio of meat to fat on this slab seemed "off" (more meat than fat, I mean), and I thought the meat dried out a wee bit in my smoking process, and I figure the slow cook will be good for a couple reasons, the least of which is to exude the smokey flavor to the broth, and perhaps break down the meat fibers a little bit.
I then put the dashi, some vinegar, some tamari, and some miso-marinade (since I don't have straight up miso/white miso here). Closed the lid, set the delay timer to start cooking in six hours, and a slow cook time of roughly six hours.
About to shower up, and head off to work. And will make an "accoutrements run" to pick up the enokis, more scallions and some wakame for the finished product! I cannot wait!
The month of August saw fit to make me crave ramen as if the world were going to end TOMORROW and all I could eat was ramen. Seriously. I started to watch Mind of a Chef on Netflix, streaming one episode after another, like a smack addict taking hit after glorious hit, and craving more.
The first season of Mind of a Chef centered around David Chang and ALL THINGS RAMEN (pretty much!). So much so, for my birthday dinner last month, the Maharajah took me to Ippudo. And while THAT was quite a glorious experience, the salt and or MSG in it gave me a powerful headache the following a.m., the likes of which (and also, sadly other ramen emporiums in NYC have rendered the same result), has left me convinced the only way I can eat ramen now is if I painstakingly make it myself.
I have many many thanks to cascade upon Justin over at C. Buddha's Hasty Musings for his immeasurable assistance in helping me to flesh out how to approach making my first batch of soup stock for ramen. Our discussion first hit upon the five seasonings in Japanese food, and kind of took off from there. We discussed roasting the bones, to how to prep the noodles I bought, as well as which kind of seaweed was best for this application.
As we spoke (or in this case, chatted online), I set up my smoke box, to smoke the pork belly which had been brining in a few tablespoons of tamari, maple syrup and a few dashes of garlic powder (2 days of resting in the fridge), which I then dried off, patted a crust of sesame seeds on the outside and smoked for about 20 minutes, though, I did turn off the heat and left the belly in there to rest, in the closed smoke box, so perhaps the smokey flavor is more intense than I originally desired, but I don't much care at this point. I am sure it will be delicious.
I then put my pork back bones (which I had marinating in a miso-marinade for about an hour) into a 300 degree oven (I rested the bones on a slight bed of cut scallions, and roasted them in a dry roasting pan for 2 hours. Upon taking the roasting pan out of the oven, I poured a 22 oz can of Sapporo beer over the top, then promptly covered with tin foil. Once this cools down sufficiently, the whole shebang will go into the fridge, to be dealt with tomorrow.
Here are a few pictures of the porkstuffs, as well as a photo of the particular brand/type of miso-marinade I used, which I got at Whole Paycheck a few weeks back. Note: I've used this miso marinade in the construction of another foodsperiment I have yet to blog: miso-hoisin crunch chicken. But today, we're talking pork and ramen.
Without further ado: The pork.
